Vol. V.—No. 121. NOTES AND QUERIES: A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

VOL. V.—No. 121.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21. 1852.

Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition, 5d.

CONTENTS.

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

Notes.

READINGS IN SHAKSPEARE, NO. II.

I cannot look upon this emendation, although sanctioned by the two latest editors of Shakspeare, as by any means a happy one. The original word in the second quarto, "ease," so nearly resembles "eale" in the first quarto (especially when printed with the old-fashioned long "[s]"); and the subsequent transition from ease to base is so extremely obvious, and at the same time so thoroughly consistent with the sense, that it is difficult to imagine any plausible ground for the rejection of base in favour of ill. Dram was formerly used (as grain is at present) to signify an indefinitely small quantity; so that "the dram of base" presents as intelligible an expression as can be desired.

But in addition to its easy deduction from the original, base possesses other recommendations, in being the natural antagonist of noble in the line following, and in the capability of being understood either in a moral or physical sense.

If the whole passage be understood as merely assertive, then base may have, in common with ill, a moral signification; but if it be understood as a metaphorical allusion to substantial matter, in illustration of the moral reflections that have gone before, then base must be taken (which ill cannot) in the physical sense, as a base substance, and, as such, in still more direct antagonism to the noble substance opposed to it.

In a former paper I had occasion to notice the intimate knowledge possessed by Shakspeare in the arcana of the several arts; and I now recognise, in this passage, a metaphorical allusion to the degradation of gold by the admixture of baser metal. Gold and lead have always been in poetical opposition as types of the noble and the base; [170] and we are assured by metallurgists, that if lead be added to gold, even in the small proportion of one part in two thousand, the whole mass is rendered completely brittle.

The question then is, in what way "the dram of base" affects "all the noble substance?" Shakspeare says it renders it doubtful or suspicious; his commentators make him say that it douts or extinguishes it altogether! And this they do without even the excuse of an originally imperfect word to exercise conjecture upon. The original word is doubt, the amended one dout; and yet the first has been rejected, and the latter adopted, in editions whose peculiar boast it is to have restored, in every practicable instance, the original text.

Now, in my opinion, Shakspeare did not intend doubt in this place, to be a verb at all, but a noun substantive: and it is the more necessary that this point should be discussed, because the amended passage has already crept into our dictionaries as authority for the verb dout; thus giving to a very questionable emendation the weight of an acknowledged text. (Vide Todd's Johnson.)

Any person who takes the amended passage, as quoted at the head of this article, and restores "dout," to its original spelling, will find that the chief hindrance to a perfect meaning consists in the restriction of doth to the value of a mere expletive. Let this restriction be removed, by conferring upon doth the value of an effective verb, and it will be seen that the difficulty no longer remains. The sense then becomes, "the base doth doubt to the noble," i.e. imparts doubt to it, or renders it doubtful. We say, a man's good actions do him credit; why not also, his bad ones do him doubt? One phrase may be less familiar than the other, but they are in strict analogy as well with themselves as with the following example from the Twelfth Night, which is exactly in point:

Hence, since the original word is capable of giving a clear and distinct meaning, there can be no possible excuse for displacing it, even if the word to be substituted were as faultless as it is certainly the reverse.

For not only is dout an apocryphal word, but it is inelegant when placed, as it must be in this instance, in connexion with the expletive doth, being at the same time in itself a verb compounded of do. Neither is the meaning it confers so clear and unobjectionable as to render it desirable; for in what way can a very small quantity be said to dout, or expel, a very large quantity? To justify such an expression, the entire identity of the larger must be extinguished, leaving no part of it to which the scandal mentioned in the third line could apply.

But an examination of the various places wherein scandal is mentioned by Shakspeare, shows that the meaning attached by him to that word was false imputation, or loss of character: therefore, in the contact of the base and the noble, the scandal must apply to the noble substance—a consideration that must not be lost sight of in any attempt to arrive at the true meaning of the whole passage.

So far, I have assumed that "often" (the third substitution in the amended quotation) is the best representative that can be found for the "of a" of the original; and inasmuch as it is confirmed by general consent, and is moreover so redundant, in this place, that its absence or presence scarcely makes any difference in the sense, it is not easily assailable.

The best way, perhaps, to attempt to supplant it is to suggest a better word—one that shall still more closely resemble the original letters in sound and formation, and that shall, in addition, confer upon the sense not a redundant but an effective assistance. Such a word is offer: it is almost identical (in sound at least) with the original, and it materially assists in giving a much clearer application to the last line.

For these reasons, but especially for the last, I adopt offer, as a verb in the infinitive ruled by doth, in the sense of causing or compelling; a sense that must have been in familiar use in Shakspeare's time, or it would not have been introduced into the translation of Scripture.

In this view the meaning of the passage becomes, "The base doth the noble offer doubt, to his own scandal"—that is, causes the noble to excite suspicion, to the injury of its own character.

Examples of do in this sense are very numerous in Spenser; of which one is (F.Q., iii. 2. 34.):

And in Chaucer (Story of Ugolino):

And in Scripture (2 Cor. viii. 1.):

By this reading a very perfect and intelligible meaning is obtained, and that too by the slightest deviation from the original yet proposed.

By throwing the action of offering doubt upon "the noble substance," it becomes the natural reference to "his own scandal" in the third line.

Hamlet is moralising upon the tendency of the "noblest virtues," "be they as pure as grace, as infinite as man may undergo," to take, from "the stamp of one defect," "corruption in the general censure" (a very close definition of scandal); and he illustrates it by the metaphor:

A. E. B.

Leeds. [171]

NATIONAL DEFENCES.

Collet, in his Relics of Literature, has furnished some curious notices of a work on national defences, which perhaps ought to be consulted at the present time, now that this matter is again exciting such general interest among all classes. It was compiled when the gigantic power of France, under Buonaparte, had enabled him to overrun and humble every continental state, and even to threaten Great Britain; and when the spirit of this country was roused to exertion by a sense of the danger, and by the fervour of patriotism. The government of that day neglected no means to keep this spirit alive in the nation; and George III. conceiving the situation of his dominions to resemble, in many respects, that which terminated so fortunately for England in the days of Queen Elizabeth, directed proper researches to be made for ascertaining the principles and preparations adopted at that eventful period. The records of the Tower were accordingly consulted; and a selection of papers, apparently of the greatest consequence, was formed and printed, but not published. This work, which contained 420 pages in octavo, was entitled, A Report of the Arrangements which were made for the Internal Defence of these Kingdoms, when Spain, by its Armada, projected the Invasion and Conquest of England; and Application of the Wise Proceedings of our Ancestors to the Present Crisis of Public Safety. The papers in this work are classed in the order of external alliance, internal defence, military arrangements, and naval equipments. They are preceded by a statement of facts, in the history of Europe, at the period of the Spanish Armada; and a sketch of events, showing the effects of the Queen's measures at home and abroad. As a collection of historical documents, narrating an important event in British history, this work is invaluable; and, as showing the relative strength of this country in population and other resources in the sixteenth century, it is curious and interesting.

J. Y.

NOTES ON HOMER, NO. II.
(Continued from Vol. v., p. 100.)

The Wolfian Theory.

The most important consideration concerning Homer is the hypothesis of Wolf, which has been contested so hotly; but before entering on the consideration of this revolution, as it may be called, I shall lay before your readers the following quotation from the introduction of Fauriel to the old Provençal poem, "Histoire de la Croisade contre les Albigeois," in the Collection des Documens Inédits sur l'Histoire de France. He observes:—

"The romances collectively designated by the title of Carlovingian, are, it would seem, the most ancient of all in the Provençal literature. They were not, originally, more than very short and simple poems, popular songs destined to be recited with more or less musical intonation, and susceptible, consequently on their shortness, of preservation without the aid of writing, and simply by oral tradition among the jongleurs, whose profession it was to sing them. Almost insensibly these songs developed themselves, and assumed a complex character; they attained a fixed length, and their re-composition required more invention and more design. In another point of view, they had increased in number in the same ratio as they had acquired greater extent and complexity; and things naturally attained such a position, that it became impossible to chant them from beginning to end by the aid of memory alone, nor could they be preserved any longer without the assistance of a written medium. They might be still occasionally sung in detached portions; but there exists scarcely a doubt, that from that period they began to be read; and it was only necessary to read them, in order to seize and appreciate their contents."[1]

[1] P. xxx., quoted in Thirlwall's History of Greece (Appendix I.), vol. i. p. 506., where it is given in French.

These remarks, though applied to another literature, contain the essentials of the theory developed by Wolf in regard to Homer. Before the time of Wolf, the popularly accepted opinion on this subject was as follows: That Homer, a poet of ancient date, wrote the Iliad and Odyssea in their present form; and that the rhapsodists having corrupted and interpolated the poems, Peisistratos, and Hipparchos, his son, corrected, revised, and restored these poems to their original condition.

Such was the general opinion, when at the end of the seventeenth century doubts began to be thrown upon it, and the question began to be placed in a new light. The critics of the time were Casaubon, Perizon, Bentley, Hédelin, and Perrault, who, more or less, rejected the established opinion. Giambattista Vico made the first attempt to embody their speculations into one methodical work. His Principi di Scienza nuova contain the germ of the theory reproduced by Wolf with so much scholarship. Wolf, founding his theory on the investigations of Vico and Wood, extended or modified their views, and assumed that the poems were never written down at all until the time of Peisistratos, their arranger. In 1778, the famous Venetian Scholia were discovered by Villoison, throwing open to the world the investigations of the Alexandrian critics; and by showing what the ideas of the Chorizontes were (on whom it were madness to write after Mure), strengthening the views of Wolf. In 1795, then, were published his famous Prolegomena, containing the theory—

"That the Iliad and Odyssey were not two complete poems, but small, separate, independent epic songs, celebrating single exploits of the heroes; and that [172] these lays were, for the first time, written down and united as the Iliad and Odyssey by Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens."[2]

[2] Smith, ii. p. 501.

The former critics (Hédelin and Perrault) had been overruled, derided, and quashed by the force of public opinion; but Wolf brought so many arguments to support his views,—collected so formidable a mass of authorities, both traditional, internal, and written, that the classical world was obliged to meet him with fresh arguments, as ridicule would not again succeed. Thus arose the formidable Wolfian controversy, which "scotched," though not "killed," the belief of the critical world in Homer. The principal arguments he adduces are from the poems themselves, in his attempt to establish the non-being of writing at the time of their composition.

Thus, in the Odyssea,[3] a master of a vessel has to remember his cargo, not having a list of his goods; in the Iliad,[4] Bellerophon carries a folded tablet containing writing or signs to Prætos in Lycia. This Wolf interprets to signify conventional marks, like the picture writing of the otherwise civilised Mexicans.[5] Again, in the Iliad (VII. 175.), the chiefs are represented as throwing lots in a helmet, and the herald afterwards handing the lots round for recognition, as each of the lots bore a mark known only to the person who made it. From this Wolf argues that writing was unknown at the time, or the herald would have immediately read the names aloud. But do we not even now make use of such marks without confounding them with writing? This is nothing at all; and it must be remembered, firstly, that this does not apply to the Homeric time, but to the period of Troy; secondly, that if it had applied to that time, it would be absurd to expect from illiterate warrior chiefs, education superior to the mediæval crusaders, their counterparts at a later period of the world's progress. These are the principal arguments that Wolf adduces to prove the non-existence of writing at the Homeric period; whereas, far from proving anything, they are self-contradictory and incorrect.

[3] Lib. viii. 163.

[4] Lib. vi. 168.

[5] See Mure, vol. iii., Appendix L., p. 507. foll.; and Appendix M. vol. iii. p. 512. foll.; and see chap. vii. book III. vol. iii. p. 397. passim.

To prove that the Peisistratidæ first wrote down the poems of Homer, he cites Josephus (Orat. contr. Apion., I. 2.), who observes that—

"No writing, the authenticity of which is acknowledged, is found among the Greeks earlier than the poetry of Homer; and, it is said, that even he did not commit his works to writing, but that, having been preserved in the memory of men, the songs were afterwards connected."

Josephus had merely heard this reported, as is evident from his use of the words "it is said." Pausanias, in the Tour in Greece (vii. 26. 6.), has the following observation:—

"A village called Donussa, between Ægira and Pellene, belonging to the Sicyonians, was destroyed by that people. Homer, say they, remembered this town in his epic, in the enumeration of the people of Agamemnon, 'Hyperesia then, and Donoessa, rocky town' (Ιλ. β. 573.); but when Peisistratos collected the torn and widely scattered songs of Homer, either he himself, or one of his friends, altered the name through ignorance."

Wolf also makes use of this report, liable to the same objections as the above, as one of his proofs. It is even doubtful whether Peisistratos did edit Homer at all; but, under any circumstances, it was not the first edition;[6] for is not Solon represented as the reviser of the Homeric poems?

[6] Granville Penn, On the primary Arrangement of the Iliad; and Appendix B to Mure, vol. i.

Cicero (de Oratore, III. 34.) says:

"Who is traditionally reported to have had more learning at that time, or whose eloquence received greater ornaments from polite literature than that of Peisistratos? who is said to have been the first that arranged the books of Homer, from their confused state, into that order in which we at present enjoy them."

This also is produced as a proof by Wolf, though, for the same reason, it is doubtful. But see Wolf's principal inaccuracies ably enumerated and exposed by Clinton (F.H., i. p. 370.).

Such is the far-famed theory of Wolf, which, as most modern scholars agree, is only calculated "to conduct us to most preposterous conclusions."[7] And this last dictum of Othello's, Mr. Editor, reminds me, that here it would not be preposterous to come to a conclusion for the present, and to close my observations in another paper, where I shall a theory "unfold," which, after the most patient consideration and reconsideration, I am inclined to think the most approximative to the truth.

[7] Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

Feb. 16. 1852.

FOLK LORE.

Fernseed.

—I find in Dr. Jackson's works allusions to a superstition which may interest some of your readers:

"It was my hap," he writes, "since I undertook the ministery, to question an ignorant soul (whom by undoubted report I had known to have been seduced by a teacher of unhallowed arts, to make a dangerous experiment) what he saw or heard, when he watcht the falling of the Fernseed at an unseasonable and suspicious hour. Why (quoth he), fearing (as his brief reply occasioned me to conjecture) lest I should press him to tell before company, what he had voluntarily confessed unto a friend in secret some fourteen years before, do you think that the devil hath aught to do [173] with that good seed? No; it is in the keeping of the king of Fayries, and he, I know, will do me no harm, although I should watch it again; yet had he utterly forgotten this king's name, upon whose kindness he so presumed, until I remembered it unto him out of my reading in Huon of Burdeaux.

"And having made this answer, he began to pose me thus; Sr, you are a scholar, abut I am none: Tell me what said the angel to our Lady? or what conference had our Lady with her cousin Elizabeth concerning the birth of St. John the Baptist?

"As if his intention had been to make bystanders believe that he knew somewhat more on this point than was written in such books as I use to read.

"Howbeit the meaning of his riddle I quickly conceived, and he confessed to be this; that the angel did foretell John Baptist should be born at that very instant, in which the Fernseed, at other times invisible, did fall: intimating further (as far as I could then perceive) that this saint of God had some extraordinary vertue from the time or circumstance of his birth."

Jackson's Works, book v. cap. xix. 8. vol. i. p. 916. Lond. 1673, fol.

In the sixth and seventh sections of the same chapter and book I find allusions to a maiden over whom Satan had no power "so long as she had vervine and St. John's grass about her;" to the danger of "robbing a swallow's nest built in a fire-house;" and to the virtues of "south-running water." Delrius also is referred to as having collected many similar instances.

I have not access to Delrius, nor yet to Huon of Burdeaux, and so am compelled deeply to regret that the good doctor did not leave on record the name of the "king of the Fayries."[8]

[8] [Oberon is his name, which Mr. Keightley shows to be identical with Elberich. See Fairy Mythology, p. 208. (ed. 1850).—ED.] [174]

RT.

Cornish Folk Lore.

—A recent old cottage tenant at Poliphant, near Launceston, when asked why he allowed a hole in the wall of his house to remain unrepaired, answered that he would not have it stopped up on any account, as he left it on purpose for the piskies (Cornish for pixies) to come in and out as they had done for many years. This is only a sample of the current belief and action.

S. R. P.

DICTIONARY OF ARCHAIC AND PROVINCIAL WORDS.

Will you allow me to suggest that, under the above, or some such heading, "N. & Q." should receive any words not to be found in any well-known dictionary; such, for instance, as Halliwell's or Webster's, which do not by any means contain all the words belonging to the class of which they profess to be the repositories. You may also invite barristers, reporters, professional men generally, and others, to send such waifs of this description as they meet with. "N. & Q." will then soon become in this department of literature, as it is already in many others, a rich mine from which future authors will draw precious store of knowledge. I will begin by giving one or two examples.

Earth-burn. An intermittent land-spring, which may not show itself for several years. There is such a spring, and so named, near to Epsom.

Lavant. A land-spring, according to Halliwell. But this also is an intermittent spring. The word is probably from lava, to flow.

Pick. (Lancashire.) To push with the hand. "I gen her a pick;" that is, "I pushed her from me;" or, "I gave her a violent push forward."

Pick is also the instrument colliers get coals with; or an excavator gets earth with; or a stonemason uses to take the "rough" off a stone. He may also finish the face of ashlar by "fine-picking" it.

Gen. (Lancashire.) A contraction of the word gave.

ROBERT RAWLINSON.

P.S.—I have seen, in a court of justice in Lancashire, judge and counsel fairly set fast with a broad spoken county person; and many of the words in common use are not to be found in any dictionary or glossary. Again, I have spoken to reporters as to technical words used at such meetings, for instance, as those of the mechanical engineers in Birmingham, and I have been informed that they are frequently bewildered and surprised at the numbers of words in use having the same meaning, but which are not to be found in any dictionary. It would be of the utmost value to seize and fix these words.

R. R.

[The proposal of our correspondent jumps so completely with the object of "N. & Q.," as announced in our original Prospectus, that we not only insert it, but hope that his invitation will be responded to by all who meet with archaisms either in their reading or in their intercourse with natives of those various districts of England which are richest in provincialisms.—ED.]

THE LAST OF THE PALÆOLOGI.

In Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, vol. xvii. p. 24., there is a very interesting article, bearing the above heading, in which it is shown that Theodore Palæologus, the fourth in direct descent from Thomas, the younger brother of Constantine, the last Christian Emperor of Greece, lies buried in the church of Landulph in Cornwall. This Theodore married Mary, the daughter of William Balls, of Hadley in Suffolk, gentleman; by whom he had issue five children, Theodore, John, Ferdinando, Maria, and Dorothy. Theodore, the first son, died in or about 1693, without issue. Of John and Ferdinando there is no trace in this country. Maria died unmarried; and Dorothy was married at Landulph to William Arundell in 1636, and died in 1681.

Ferdinando Palæologus appears to have died in the island of Barbadoes in 1678, and was buried in the church of St. John.

These researches are extremely interesting, and it is only to be regretted that they are not more frequently made and left on record. Allow me to suggest that such of your readers as have time, inclination, and opportunity for making inquiries of this nature, should, through the medium of "N. & Q.," place on record any striking illustrations similar to the above. Your own publication, Vol. iii., p. 350., contains a list of names of the poor of St. Albans, several of which are borne still by noble families. Possibly there may be still existing descendants of the Dorothy Palæologus who married William Arundell at Landulph.

To mention another instance: I believe there now lives at Rugby a member of the legal profession, who is directly descended from one of the most renowned Polish families. Particulars of this case, if furnished by or with the consent of the head of the family, would, I have no doubt, prove exceedingly interesting.

L. L. L.

THE LAST LAY OF PETRARCH'S CAT.

In the year 1820 I saw the following Latin verse inscribed under the skeleton of a cat in one of the rooms of Petrarch's favourite villa at Arqua, near Padua. If you choose to print them, with or without the accompanying English version, they are at your service:—

J. O. B.

Minor Notes.

Sobriquet.

—As this word is now pretty generally adopted in our language, I send you this Note to say that the word is not soubriquet, as some of your correspondents write it, but sobriquet; the former being what the French term a locution vicieuse, and only used by the illiterate. Ménage derives the word from rubridiculum.

PHILIP S. KING.

Origin of Paper.

—Whether a product is indigenous or foreign may generally be determined by the rule in linguistics, that similarity of name in different languages denotes foreign extraction, and variety of name indigenous production. The dog, whose name is different in most languages, shows that he is indigenous to most countries. The cat, on the contrary, having almost the same name in many languages, is therefore of foreign extraction in nearly all countries. The word paper is common to many tongues, the moderns having adopted it from the Greek; in which language, however, the root of the word is not significant. In Coptic (ai GUPTIC) the word bavir means a plant suitable for weaving: and is derived from the Egyptian roots ba, fit, proper; and vir, to weave. The art of paper-making may therefore be inferred to be the invention of the Egyptians; and further, that paper was made by them as by us, from materials previously woven. This inference would be either confirmatory or corrective of history, in case the history were doubtful, which it is not.

T. J. B.

Lichfield.

Persistency of Proper Names.

—The village of Boscastle, originally founded by the Norman Botreaux, still contains, amongst other French names, the following:—Moise, Amy, Benoke, Gard, Avery (Query, Yvery),—all old family names; and places still called Palais, Jardin, and a brook called Valency.

S. R. P.

Launceston.

Cheap Maps.

—This is the age of cheap maps and atlases, yet the public is miserably supplied. We have maps advertised from 1d. to 5s., and atlases from 10s. 6d. to 10 guineas. Yet they are generally impressions from old plates, or copies of old plates, with a few places of later notoriety marked, without taking the entire chart from the latest books of voyages and travels. Look at [175] the maps of Affghanistan, Scinde, Indian Isles, American Isthmus, &c.

On inquiry at all our shops here for a moderately priced map of the new railway across South America to Panama, and for maps of California and Borneo, not one could be got.

Have any of your chart-wrights in London got up such maps for youth and emigrants? If not, let them take the hint now given by

PATERFAMILIÆ.

Edinburgh.

Queries.

DID ST. PAUL QUOTE ARISTOTLE?

Throughout the writings of St. Paul, his exactly cultivated mind is scarcely less visible than his divinely inspired soul. Notwithstanding his magnificent rebukes of human learning and philosophy, and his sublime exaltation of the foolishness of God above the wisdom of men, the Apostle of the Gentiles was no mean master of Gentile learning. His three well-known quotations from Greek poets furnish direct evidence of his acquaintance with Greek literature. He proclaimed the fatherhood of God to the Athenians in the words of his countryman the poet Aratus (Acts, xvii. 28.). He warns the Corinthians by a moral common-place borrowed from the dramatist Menander (1 Cor. xv. 33.). He brings an hexameter verse of a Cretan poet as a testimony to the bad character of the Cretan people (Titus, i. 12.). I do not positively assert that I have discovered a fourth quotation; I would merely inquire whether the appearance in a Pauline epistle of a sentence which occurs in a treatise of Aristotle, is to be regarded as a quotation, or as an accidental and most singular identity of expression. In the Politics (lib. III. cap. 8.), Aristotle, in speaking of very powerful members of a community, says, "κατα δε των τοιουτων ουκ εστι νομος" ("but against such there is no law"). In the Epistle to the Galatians (v. 23.), Paul, after enumerating the fruits of the Spirit, adds, "against such there is no law" ("κατα των τοιουτων ουκ εστι νομος"). The very same words which the philosopher uses to express the exceptional character of certain over-powerful citizens, the apostle borrows, or, at least, employs, to signify the transcendent nature of divine graces. According to Aristotle, mighty individuals are above legal restraint, against such the general laws of a state do not avail: according to Paul, the fruits of the Spirit are too glorious and divine for legal restraint; they dwell in a region far above the regulation of the moral law.

While there is no possibility of demonstrating that this identity of expression is a quotation, there is nothing to forbid the idea of this sentence being a loan from the philosopher to the apostle. Paul was as likely to be at home in the great philosophers, as in the second and third-rate poets of Greece. The circumstance of Aratus being of his own birth-place, Tarsus, might specially commend the Phænomena to his perusal; but the great luminary of Grecian science was much more likely to fall within his perusal than an obscure versifier of Crete; and if he thought it not unseemly to quote frown a comic writer, he surely would not disdain to borrow a sentence from the mighty master of Stagira. The very different employment which he and Aristotle find for the same words makes nothing against the probability of quotation. The sentence is remarkable, not in form, but in meaning. There is nothing in the mere expression peculiarly to commend it to the memory, or give it proverbial currency. I cannot say that it is a quotation; I cannot say that it is not.

I am not aware that this quotation or identity of expression has been pointed out before. Wetstein, who above all editors of the Greek Testament abounds in illustrations and parallel passages from the classics, takes no notice of this identical one. It is surely worth the noting; and should anything occur to any of your correspondents either to confirm or demolish the idea of quotation, I would gladly be delivered out of my doubt. I should not think less reverently of St. Paul in believing him indebted to Aristotle; I should rather rejoice in being assured that one of the greatest spiritual benefactors of mankind was acquainted with one of its chief intellectual benefactors.

THOMAS H. GILL.

Minor Queries.

Silver Royal Font.

—I remember having read of a very ancient silver font, long preserved among the treasures of the British crown, in which the infants of our royal families were commonly baptized. Is this relic still in existence? where may it be seen? what is its history? have any cuts or engravings of it been published? where may any particulars respecting it be found?

NOCAB.

L'Homme de 1400 Ans.

—In that very extraordinary part of a very extraordinary transaction, the statement of Cagliostro, in the matter of the Collier (Paris, 1786, pp. 20. 36.), mention is twice made of an imaginary personage called l'homme de 1400 ans. Cagliostro complains that he was said to be that personage, or the Wandering Jew, or Antichrist. He is not, therefore, the same as the Wandering Jew. I should be very curious to learn where this notion is derived from.

C. B.

Llandudno, on the Great Orme's Head.

—Having occasion to visit the above interesting place last summer, among other objects of curiosity, I was induced to visit a "cavern," which the inhabitants said had been lately discovered, and which they [176] said had been used by the "Romans" (Roman Catholics) as a place of worship. A party of five hired a boat for the purpose of visiting the place, which is about two miles from the little bay of Llandudno; for it is quite inaccessible by land. We arrived in about an hour; and were quite surprised at the appearance of the "cavern," which seems to have been made as private as possible, and as inaccessible, by large stones being piled carelessly upon each other, so as to hide the entrance, and which we could not have found without the assistance of the sailors. The "cavern" is about ten feet high, lined with smooth and well-jointed stone work, with a plain but nicely executed cornice at the height of seven or eight feet. The shape is heptagonal, and the fronts on each side are faced with smooth stone; the space from front to back, and from side to side, is equal, about six feet six inches. On the right, close to the entrance, is a font, sixteen inches across inside, twenty-two outside, and eight or nine inches deep. There is a seat round, except at the entrance; and there has been a stone table or altar in the centre, but a small portion of it and the pillar only remain. The floor has been flagged, but it is in a very dilapidated state. That it was used for worship, there is little doubt; but how and when it was fitted up, seems marvellous. It is not mentioned by Pennant, or any Welsh tourist.

Will any of your correspondents oblige me and the public with the history of this "cavern," as it is called, at Llandudno?

L. G. T.

Johnson's House, Bolt Court.

—Can any of your readers inform me whether the house in which Dr. Johnson resided, and in which he died, situate in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, is yet in existence? You are probably aware that an engraving of it appeared in the Graphic Illustrations edited by Mr. Croker, and prefixed to this engraving was an announcement that it was destroyed by fire.

There is reason, however, to believe that this is a mistake, and that the house so destroyed by fire belonged not to Johnson, but to Johnson's friend, Allen the printer.

You are probably aware that the house which stands opposite the Johnson's Head Tavern, is shown as the residence of the great moralist; and on comparing another engraving by Smith of the Doctor's study with the room now claimed to have been occupied by Johnson, the likeness is exact. Cobbett, too, who afterwards lived here, boasted in one of his publications that he was writing in the same room where Johnson compiled his Dictionary. At any rate it is an interesting question, and probably can be set at rest by some of your literary friends, especially as I have reason to believe that there is one gentleman still living who visited the Doctor in Bolt Court. Madame D'Arblay, I think, once said, that the author of the Pleasures of Memory arrived at the door at the same moment with herself during Johnson's last illness.

EDWIN LECHLADE.

Bishop Mossom.

—Robert Mossom, D.D., was prebendary of Knaresboro' in Yorkshire, 1662, and Bishop of Derry, 1666. In dedicating his Zion's Prospect (1651) to Henry (Pierrepont) Marquess of Dorchester and Earl of Kingston, towards the end he says, "Besides this, mine relation to your late deceased uncle;" then referring to the margin he has "Ds. T. G., Eques felicis memoriæ."

Zion's Prospect (a copy of which, with several of his other works, is in the library of the British Museum) has on the title-page, "By R. M., quondam è collo S. P. C."

His grandson, Robert Mossom, D.D. (son of Robert Mossom, LL.D., Master in the French Court of Chancery), was Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and subsequently Dean of Ossory from 1701 to 1747; he married Rebecca, daughter and coheir of Robert Mason of Dublin, and granddaughter, I believe, of Jonathan Alaud of Waterford. Dean Mossom was one of the oldest friends of Dean Swift; Sir Walter Scott has but one letter to him in Swift's Correspondence (2nd ed. Edin. 1824, vol. XIX. p. 275.). Are there any other letters that passed between them in existence?

Can any of your readers refer me to a pedigree of the Masons of Dublin, and also any pedigree that connects the Mossom with the Elaud family of Yorkshire?

What college was that of S. P. C.? and who was Sir T. G——, Knt.; and how was he related to Bishop Mossom?

T. C. M. M.

Inner Temple.

Orlando Gibbons.

—Hawkins, in his History of Music, gives "a head" of this musician. Is there any other engraved portrait?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Portraits.

—What is the most correct catalogue of all the engraved portraits which are known to exist?

S. S.

Barnard's Church Music.

—Can any of your readers point out where John Barnard's first book of selected church music, folio, ten parts, 1641, is to be found? The writer knows of the imperfect set at Hereford Cathedral, a tenor part at Canterbury, and a bass part in private hands. Dr. Burney makes mention, in his History of Music, of having sought diligently throughout the kingdom, but could not find an entire copy. Perhaps some of your correspondents may kindly favour the writer with a list of its contents.

AMANUENSIS.

The Nelson Family.

—In Burke's Commoners, under the head of "Nelson of Chuddleworth," it appears that William Nelson of Chuddleworth, born in 1611, had by his second wife, the daughter [177] of John Pococke, gentleman, of Woolley, among other children, a son named William; but of whom no further mention is made.

Can any of your Norfolk or Berkshire friends state whether this son William ever settled at Dunham Parva, in Norfolk?—as, by so doing, an obligation will be conferred on your occasional correspondent

FRANCISCUS.

Letters to the Clergy.

—In the Diary of Walter Yonge (published by the Camden Society), p. 24., is the following:

"16 Dec. 1614. This day the Ministers of this Diocese (Exon) were called before the Bishop of Exon, who read letters from the Archbishop, the effects of which were, that every minister should exhort his parishioners to continue together the Sabbath Day, and not to wander to other preachers who have better gifts than their own pastors, but should content themselves with the Word of God read and Homilies. 2. That all should kneel at the receiving of the Sacrament. 3. To declare unto their parishioners that it is not necessary to have the Word preached at the Sacraments.—Dictu Magistri Knowles, Vicarii de Axminster, at that time present."

Query, Can any of your readers say to what letter, and on what occasion such orders were issued by the archbishop, and also whether they have been published in any volume on ecclesiastical matters?

H. T. E.

Margaret Burr.

—It is related in Allan Cunningham's Life of Gainsborough, that he married a young lady named Margaret Burr, of Scottish extraction; and that

"On an occasion of household festivity, when her husband was high in fame, she vindicated some little ostentation in her dress by whispering to her niece, now Mrs. Lane, 'I have some right to this, for you know, my love, I am a prince's daughter.'"

The biographer of the British Painters prefaces this by saying,

"Nor must I omit to tell that rumour conferred other attractions (besides an annuity) upon her; she was said to be the natural daughter of one of our exiled princes, nor was she, when a wife and a mother, desirous of having this circumstance forgotten."

As I just now read in Vol. iv., p. 244., some account of Berwick, and other natural children of James II., I was put in mind of the above anecdote, and should be glad of any information respecting the Miss Burr's parentage in question. Myself a collateral descendant of her husband, I know from other sources that the tradition is worthy of credit; and to the genealogist and antiquary it may be a historically interesting enquiry.

H. W. G. R.

Northern Ballads.

—Is any gentleman in possession of any old printed copies of Danish or Swedish popular ballads, or of any manuscript collection of similar remains? Are any such known to exist in any public library in Great Britain? By printed, of course I mean old fly-sheets, from the sixteenth century downward; they are generally of four, sometimes of eight, leaves small octavo. Any information, either personally, or through "N. & Q.," will much oblige

GEORGE STEPHENS.

Copenhagen.

"Blamed be the man," &c.

—Where is the following couplet to be found?

N. O. K.

"Quid est Episcopus."

—Can any correspondent furnish me with the reference to a passage supposed to exist in one of the early fathers (I think Irenæus):—

X. G. X.

Henry Isaac.

—I shall feel obliged to any person who can give any account (for genealogical purposes) of Henry Isaac, who lived at Roehampton about the middle of last century. He was a diamond merchant from Holland. He had a collection of pictures, one of which was the Lord of the Vineyard paying his Labourers, by Rembrandt.

H. T. E.

German Poet quoted by Camden.

—Britannia, sive regnorum Angliæ, Scotiæ, et Hiberniæ chorographica descriptio: Gulielmo Camdeno: Lond. 1607, folio, p. 302., Middlesex.

"Nec magno hinc intervallo Tamisim duplici ostiolo Colus postquam insulas sparserit, illabitur. Ad quem ut nostræ ætatis Poeta Germanus lusit:

Camden, speaking of the Colne falling with a double mouth into the Thames, quotes a German poet of his day; and I should be much obliged by any reader of the "N. & Q." favouring me with the name, and reference to the author from whence the preceding quotation is taken.

☞ F.

American Degrees.

—Several members of the Brougham Institute here, and constant readers of "N. & Q.," would feel obliged if some of your learned correspondents would give them some information about the obtaining of American degrees, as recently a large cargo of diplomas had arrived in this quarter, such as D.D. and LL.D., and conferred on men of third-rate talent. What we want is, to be informed how such degrees are obtained; if it is the president, or president and professors, of the American academies who confer them. This subject is so frequently agitated here, that you would greatly oblige many inquirers by making a question of it in "N. & Q.," so that we [178] may obtain full reply explanatory of how these degrees are obtained, and of the bestowers of them.

J. W.

Liverpool.

Derivation of News.

—It is just two years since the word News was stated to be derived from the initial letters of the cardinal points of the compass, as prefixed to early newspapers. I well remember the impression which the statement made on me: if written seriously, as a mark of credulity; if sportively, as rather out of place. Moreover, it was both stated as a fact, and as an ingenious etymology—a manifest inconsistency.

In the fierce and tiresome discussion which arose out of that announcement, the main points in support of the asserted derivation were never once introduced. Do such early newspapers exist? Is the derivation itself of early date? As to the first question, I must declare that no such newspapers ever came under my observation; but as to the second, it must be admitted that the derivation has been in print, with all the weight of evidence which belongs to it, above two centuries.

I shall assume, if not better informed, that it has no other authority than the subjoined epigram in Wits recreations, first published in 1640, and said to contain the finest fancies of the muses of those times. In default of the original edition of that rare work, I transcribe from the re-publication of it in 1817.

BOLTON CORNEY.

Passage in Troilus and Cressida.

—Would MR. J. PAYNE COLLIER, whose name I have often seen among your contributors, have the kindness to inform me whether any light is thrown, in the emendations inserted in his folio edition of Shakspeare, 1628, on a line which has always puzzled me in Ulysses' speech in council, in Scene 3. of Act I. of Troilus and Cressida? The passage runs thus:

It will be seen that the third line, according to the usual pronunciation of the last word, is defective in scanning; that, if derived from divido, the vowel in the penultimate syllable would be i and not a; and that, even if intended to express the word divided, as suggested by one of our commentators, would be too vague and inexpressive.

Might I suggest that the derivation is not from the word divido, but rather from a compound of the words divitiæ and do; the expression "riches-giving shores" not only completing the sense of the passage, but forming a compound not uncommon with our immortal bard.

W. S. D.

Bachelor's Buttons.

—That should be their name if they exist; but, if so, where are they to be got? I never heard of them. I should think a clever fellow might make a fortune by inventing some kind of substitute which a man without the time, skill, or materials necessary for sewing on a button, might put in the place of a deserter. If you do not insert this Query, may your brace buttons fly off next time you are dressing in a hurry to dine with the grandest people you know!

YOUR WELLWISHER.

Princes of Wales and Earls of Chester, eldest Sons of the Kings of England.

—In the New Memoirs of Literature, vol. iv., July, 1726, it was announced that Mr. Bush, one of the Clerks of the Record Office in the Tower, and late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, designed to print a Collection of Charters, Letters Patent, and other instruments concerning the creation and investiture of the eldest sons of the Kings of England as Princes of Wales, Dukes of Cornwall, Earls of Chester and Flint, &c. &c., from the time of Edward, the first Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward II.), to the time of Edward IV.

Can any of your correspondents inform me whether such a work ever was published? and who was the editor of the monthly review entitled New Memoirs of Literature, which extended to six volumes 8vo.? It contains notices of many old and now rare works, and stopped in December, 1727.

G.

Authenticated Instances of Longevity.

—Your correspondent A. B. R. (antè, p. 145.) and others argue their question of the old Countess of Desmond very ably;—will any one of them be pleased to argue my question? Is there one word of truth in the story, or any other story that rests, as a preliminary condition, on the assumption that people have lived to one hundred and fifty years of age? Of course the proof is to rest on dates and facts, parish registers—on clear legal evidence. It is admitted by actuaries and others, learned in such matters, that the average duration of life is greater now than it was; so, we might fairly assume, would be the exceptional life. Can these gentlemen refer us to a single instance of an insured person who lived to one hundred and fifty? to one hundred and forty, thirty, twenty, ten? aye, to one hundred and ten? There is a nonsensical inscription to this effect on the portrait of a man of the name of Gibson, hung up in Greenwich Hospital, but its untruth has been proved. I also [179] remember another case made out to the entire satisfaction of some benevolent ladies, by, as afterwards appeared, the baptismal register of John the father being made to do duty as the register of John the son. I mention these things as a warning; I protest, too, at starting against flooding "N. & Q." with evidence brought from Russia or America, or any of the back settlements of the world, and against all evidence of people with impossible memories. What I want is good legal evidence; the greatest age of the oldest members of the Equitable, Amicable, and other Insurance offices—lives certainly beyond the average; the greatest age of a member of the House of Peers coming within the eye of proof. When these preliminary questions, and reasonable inferences, shall have been determined, it will, I think, be quite time enough to raise questions about the old Countess, old Parr, old Jenkins, and other like ante-register longevities.

O. C. D.

Minor Queries Answered.

Laud's Letters and Papers.

—Can any of your correspondents inform one where any unpublished letters or papers of Archbishop Laud are to be met with, besides those at Lambeth or in the British Museum?

Anthony à Wood mentions his speech against Nathanael Fiennes; and Wanley, in his Catalogue of English and Irish MSS., states that many of his writings, both political and theological, were extant at that time in private libraries.

B. J.

[Archbishop Laud's Works are now in the course of publication in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, and from the editor's valuable bibliographical prefaces to vols. i. and ii., we think it probable that some notices of these MSS. will be given in the subsequent volumes. Our correspondent may also consult Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ, Oxon. 1697.]

Scot's Philomythie.

—Philomythie, or Philomythologie, wherein Outlandish Birds, Beasts, and Fishes are taught to speak true English plainlie, &c.

The same volume, a small quarto unpaged, contains "The Merrie American Philosopher, or Wise Man of the New World," and "Certaine Pieces of this Age Parabolized, viz. Duellum Britannicum; Regalis Justitia Jacobi; Aquignispicium; Antidotum Cecillianum; by Thomas Scot, Gentleman, 1616, with illustrative woodcuts."

Query: Is the book rare, and who was Thomas Scot?

L. S.

[But little appears to be known of the personal history of Thomas Scot. Sir S. Egerton Brydges, in his Censura Literaria, vol. iii. pp. 381-386., and vol. iv. p. 32., has given some account of his works, but no biographical notice of the author. The dedications to his poems being principally to the Norfolk and Suffolk gentry, it is probable he belonged to one of those counties. The first edition of Philomythie was published in 1610; the second in 1616; but some copies of the second edition, according to Lowndes, are dated 1622, others 1640. There is a third portion which our correspondent does not appear to possess, entitled The Second Part of Philomythie, or Philomythologie, containing Certaine Tales of true libertie, false friendship, power united, faction and ambition. By Thomas Scot, Gent. London, 1616, 1625. Thomas Park thought that, from the great disparity of merit between this and the preceding part, there is little reason to suppose them to be by the same author, though they bear the same name. Scot's works are considered rare, especially his first, entitled Four Paradoxes of Arte, of Lawe, of Warre, of Seruice: London, 1602, consisting of twenty-four leaves, in verse, dedicated to Ladie Helena, Marquesse of Northampton, which is marked in Bibl. Anglo. Poet. at 25l., and resold for 7l. 12s. (Hibbert, 7243.)]

Robin of Doncaster.

—Give me leave to ask for an explanation of the following enigmatical epitaph, which will be found in the History of Doncaster, by Dr. Edward Miller, p. 74.:

Dr. Johnson latinized a part of it thus:

In Magna Britannia et Hibernia, antiqua et nova, vol. vi. p. 429., it is stated that Robin of Doncaster gave Rossington Wood to that corporation. Perhaps some reader may be able to supply more of his biography.

☞ F.

[A similar epitaph to the above will be found on the tomb of William Lambe, in the church of St. Faith under Paul: see Strype's Stow, book iii. p. 146. Dr. Miller does not appear to have given any biographical notices of Robert Byrkes, except that he was Mayor of Doncaster during the years 1569, 1573, and 1577. The following explanation of this inscription is given by Bland in his Proverbs, vol. i. p. 23.:—"By prudence in the distribution of his benevolence, by giving only to good and deserving persons, he procured to himself friends, on whose advice and assistance he might depend whenever occasion should desire it; and by expending only what he could conveniently spare, and laying it out on such things as administered to his comfort, he enjoyed, and therefore had what he expended; but what he left, not being enjoyed by himself, nor going perhaps to persons of his choice, or being used in the manner he would have preferred, that portion might be truly said to be lost."] [180]

Horæ Belgicæ.

—In what language is the second part of Hoffman von Fallersleben's Horæ Belgicæ written? This, from its title being written in Latin, may seem a foolish question, but it is also called (N. & Q., Vol. v., p. 7.) Holländische Volkslieder: and where can it be procured or seen?

W. S. S.

[Hoffman's work consists of six parts, of which the first—a bibliographical essay on old Flemish literature—is written in Latin. The second, to which our correspondent refers, is in German. Part III. contains the Flemish Floris ende Blancefloer, with a German Introduction; Part IV., the old Flemish Caerl ende Elegast, has a Latin preface; while Part V., containing Lantsloof ende die scone Sandrijn and Renout van Montalbaen, and Part VI., Altniederländische Schaubühne, a collection of early Flemish dramatic pieces, have German introductions. We believe the work may be procured of Williams and Norgate. If not, or our correspondent only wishes to refer to it, we shall be very happy to place our copy at his service for a few weeks.]

Dulcarnon.

—"I am at Dulcarnon." What is the origin of the above saying? I heard it used the other day by a person who, declaring he was at his wit's end, exclaimed, "Yes, indeed I am at Dulcarnon." Since that I have seen it in Boyer's French Dictionary, but in no English book.

H. CORVILLE WARDE.

Kidderminster.

[In addition to the note in our first Vol. p. 254, we may remark that Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary, says this word has set all editors of Chaucer at defiance. A clue to its meaning may be found in Stanihurst's Description of Ireland, p. 28.: "These sealie soules were (as all dulcarnanes for the most part are) more to be terrified from infidelitie through the paines of hell, than allured to Christianitie by the joies of heaven."]

Replies.

NUMBER OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.
(Vol. v., p. 11.)

Your correspondent ÆGROTUS sees a difficulty in the rapid increase of the Israelites in Egypt, and proposes to lessen it by doubling the time of their stay there, and including women in their census. His criticisms, however, seem to be as inadmissible as his difficulty is unreal.

For, first, in the place he quotes (Ex. xii. 37.), the number is said to be "nearly 600,000 that were men," where the Italics are intended to throw emphasis on men; because the Heb. גְּבָריִם means men as opposed to women, strong men, even soldiers. Also, from Numb. i. 2. 46. we see that the number 603,550 included only "every male ... from 20 years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war," thus excluding the tribe of Levi (v. 47.). Josephus, indeed, says (Antiq. III. viii. 2. and xii. 4.) that it included only the men between 20 and 50 years of age.

Then, as to the time that they were in Egypt: it is evident from Gal. iii. 17. that, going back 430 years from the Exode, we must come into the time of Abraham: so that the 430 years in Ex. xii. 40. must begin when Abraham first went into Egypt. And this is confirmed by the reading of the LXX there: κατῴκησαν ἐν γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ καὶ ἐν γῇ Χαναὰν, ἔτη τετρακόσια τριάκοντα. That they remained only 215 years in Egypt, is not merely the opinion of Professor Lee, as ÆGROTUS seems to think: it is given by Josephus (Antiq. II. xv. 2.), was received by the Jews and early Christians generally, and is now (at least almost) universally adopted.

Now, to come to the supposed difficulty itself: none such really exists, even if we take the higher number and the shorter time, as I think indeed we ought. The men being taken at about 600,000, we must reckon the whole people, at least, at 2,000,000. A calculation of no difficulty shows that if 70 persons increase in 215 years to 2,000,000, the number of the people must double itself every 14-1/2 years: or, if they increase to 3,000,000, the number must double every 14 years. Now, compare this with what we know about some other nations. Humboldt, in his Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne (tom. i. p. 339.) says:

"The information which I have collected proves that, if the order of nature were not interrupted from time to time by some extraordinary and disturbing cause" [e.g. famine, pestilence], "the population of New Spain ought to double itself every nineteen years. [...] In the United States, since 1774, we have seen the population double itself in 22 years. The curious tables which M. Samuel Blodget has published in his Statistical Manual of the United States of America (1806, p. 73.), show that, for certain States, this cycle is only thirteen or fourteen years."

Again, Malthus, in his Essay on the Principles of Population, p. 6., says:

"According to a table of Euler, calculated on a mortality of 1 in 36, if the births be to the deaths in the proportion of 3 to 1, the period of doubling will be over 12 years and 4-5ths. And this supposition is not only a possible supposition, but has actually occurred for short periods in more countries than one. Sir William Petty (Polit. Arith., p. 14.) supposes a doubling, possible in so short a time as ten years."

What difficulty, then, can there be (knowing the promise in Gen. xvii. 6.) in believing that the number of the Israelites in Egypt doubled itself every fourteen years?

F. A.

P.S. Assuming what Malthus considers an ordinary rate of increase, when population is unchecked, viz. a doubling in 25 years, 70 persons in 430 years would increase to 10,539,000: which is what ÆGROTUS wishes to know.

At Vol. v., p. 11., ÆGROTUS suggests that the "600,000 men" of Ex. xii. 37. mean "men and [181] women." He will find some valuable "Notes" on Hebrew statistics in the 1st and 2d chapters of Numbers, that appear to militate against his theory! (Numb. i. 1, 2, 3., ii. 32.)

A. A. D.

SERJEANTS' RINGS AND MOTTOES.
(Vol. v., pp. 59. 92. 110.)

The following will, I believe, be found to be a correct list of the Serjeants' mottoes during the last twenty years. The Law Reports not being probably accessible to all your readers to whom the subject may be one of interest, I have compiled this list with the view of preserving (in as brief a form as possible) in your pages, what is now scattered through many volumes.

Serjeants

N.B. The subsequent titles of those of the above learned Serjeants who have received promotion are omitted for brevity sake.

J. B. COLMAN.

Eye.

MR. FOSS is, I believe, mistaken in supposing that all the serjeants called at the same time have the same motto. That is the usual practice, but it has not been invariably observed. Sir John Walter, Sir Henry Yelverton, and Sir Thomas Trevor, were all called on the same day (May 10, 1 Car. I.). Sir John Walter and Sir Thomas Trevor gave the same motto on their rings, and Sir Henry Yelverton gave rings with a different motto. There are other instances of the like kind; that above referred to I take from the only old law-book I have now at hand (Croke's Reports).

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

The following is probably the case referred to at p. 92. It is contained in 1 Modern Reports, case 30.:

"Seventeen serjeants being made the 14th day of November, a daye or two after, Serjeant Powis, the junior of them all, coming to the King's Bench bar, Lord Chief Justice Kelynge told him that he had something to say to him, viz., that the rings which he and the rest of the serjeants had given weighed but eighteen shillings apiece; whereas Fortescue, in his book De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, says, 'The rings given to the Chief Justices and to the Chief Baron ought to weigh twenty shillings apiece;' and that he spoke not this expecting a recompense, but that it might not be drawn into a precedent, and that the young gentlemen there might take notice of it."

W. H. LAMMIN.

Fulham.

MR. FOSS quotes what he considers the happiest of these mottoes. I think the following at least as happy, and certainly more classical. I believe (but am not sure) it was adopted by Mr. Serjeant Bosanquet. I need not point out its application:

F. R.

LEARNED MEN OF THE NAME OF BACON.
(Vol. iii., pp. 41. 151.)

As no one appears inclined to follow up the suggestion of your correspondent with regard to the learned men of the name of Bacon, I have drawn up the following list, which I have met in the course of my reading, according to their dates.

1st. Robert Bacon, an eminent divine, born 1168, and died 1248. He studied at Oxford, and perfected his education at Paris; his principal work was the life of his friend and patron, Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, which was highly esteemed; he also wrote many other learned works.

2nd. Roger Bacon, the learned monk; of him it will suffice for me to mention the date of his birth and death, as none will dispute his right to a place in the list. He was born near Ilchester, in Somersetshire, 1214, and died at Oxford 1294.

3rd. John Bacon (surnamed the Resolute Doctor) was born at the latter end of the thirteenth century, in the little village of Baconthorpe, in Norfolk; [182] from thence he is often called Baconthorpe. After some years spent in the Convent of Blackney, five miles from Walsingham, he removed to Oxford, and thence to Paris, where he was honoured by degrees both in law and divinity, and was considered the head of the Averroïsts. In 1333 he was invited by letters to Rome; and Paulus Pansa, writing of him from thence, says, "This one resolute doctor has furnished the Christian religion with armour against the Jews, stronger than any of Vulcan's," &c. He was held in great esteem all throughout Italy. He died in London, 1346.

4th. Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the great seal to Queen Elizabeth, was born at Chislehurst, in Kent, 1510, and educated at Cambridge. "As a statesman," says his historian, "he was remarkable for a clear head and deep counsels; he had much of that penetrating genius, solidity, and judgment, persuasive eloquence, and comprehensive knowledge of law and equity, which afterwards shone with so great a lustre in his son" (Francis Lord Verulam). He died Feb. 26th, 1578, equally lamented by the queen and her subjects; a monument was erected to him in St. Paul's, which was destroyed by the Great Fire, 1666. Sir Nicholas left several MSS., which have never been published.

5th. Anthony Bacon, the eldest son of Sir Nicholas by his first wife, born 1558, and educated at Cambridge. He was personally acquainted with most of the literati of that age. At Geneva he lodged in the house of the celebrated Theodore Beza. In 1585, he visited Henry of Navarre, then at Berne; here he became acquainted with the learned Lambert Danæus, who, as a mark of esteem, dedicated several of his works to him. In 1586, he formed an intimacy with the famous Philip Plessis de Mornay at Montaubon; 1591, he returned to England; from this time he carried on an extensive correspondence with the literati, and in 1596 he began a correspondence with Henry of Navarre, then Henry IV. of France. The time of his death is uncertain.

6th. Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, second son of Sir Nicholas, born 1560, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; died April 9th, 1621. What can be a more concise and expressive notice of this great man than that of Walpole!—

"The Prophet of Arts which Newton was sent to reveal.... It would be impertinent to enter into an account of this amazing genius or his works; both will be universally admired so long as science exists."

7th. Sir Nathaniel Bacon, K.B., a younger son by his second wife of Sir Nicholas, was an excellent painter. He studied his art in Italy, but his style and colouring approach nearer to the Flemish school. I can find no date of his birth, &c.

8th. Phanuel Bacon, D.D., an admirable wit and poet. He died at Balden, Jan. 2nd, 1733.

9th. John Bacon, the celebrated sculptor, and possessed also of respectable literary talents; born in Southwark 1740, died 1799.

I hope you will not consider this list too long for insertion; but I thought it useless to give a long string of names without a short notice of each.

MYFANWY.

COLLAR OF SS.
(Vol. v., p. 81.)

Having only commenced subscribing to "N. & Q." at the beginning of the present year, I am not aware what has been said prior to this date, with reference to the Collar of SS.; but should not Mr. Boutell's remarks about this collar have been published, I beg to send them for the information of those interested:

"Next to the Garter itself, the most celebrated knightly decoration of this class is the Collar of SS. introduced by King Henry IV., apparently as a memorial of the success with which his aspiring ambition had been crowned: this letter S, repeated either in links of gold, or in gold embroidery, worked upon a fillet of blue, is the initial of the word 'Souveraine,' Henry's motto, which he bore while Earl of Derby, and which, as he afterwards became sovereign, appeared auspicious."

I dare say this idea of Mr. Boutell's may have been very ably refuted, by having pointed out the existence of the collar on a knight who is known for certain to have died prior to the reign of Henry IV.; but I must say that I have seen nothing in the Numbers of the current year which alters my opinion.

With reference to what MR. LEWIS EVANS says, at page 38., I beg to remark that he only assumes their dates from current report, for the dates are not on either of the tombs he mentions; and I think MR. EVANS is not a great studier of monumental effigies, otherwise he would not talk of a knight being dressed in "a coif de mailles and pointed helmet." I assume he means "a camail and pointed bascinet."

LLEWELLYN, at p. 81., makes mention of several, but of the only two upon which he ventures to fix a date, prior to Henry IV., one is "commonly ascribed," &c., and the other is "vulgarly called," &c., so that I place no reliance upon the truth of his deductions. Edwardus de la Hale, whom he mentions as No. 7., died, I think he will find, in 1431, and not 1421.

As regards the brass of Sir Thomas Peryent and lady, at Digswell, Herts, I may mention that although he wears a collar, yet I do not think it ought to be fixed as certain that it is that of the SS., for no letter, or portion of a letter, remains to prove it, although the collar which Lady Peryent wears is perfectly distinct. [183]

I send you a list of a few more knights and ladies who wear this collar:

As regards the brass of Sir Thomas Burton, although the date affixed to it is 1382, yet it is quite evident, from the style of armour worn by him, and the execution of the brass itself, that it was not executed till 1410, and that he died about that time, and his wife at the date mentioned.

H. L.

To MR. FOSS'S list of effigies bearing the Collar of SS. allow me to add the brass of Sir Thomas Peryent and his lady, at Digswell, Herts, both of whom wear this collar. Sir Thomas was a squire at arms to Henry IV., and died A.D. 1415.

At Arundel Church, also in Sussex, is a brass to Thomas Salmon and his lady. The figure of the knight is destroyed, but that of his lady bears the collar. Perhaps some of your readers can give some account of this knight.

Query, What persons are now entitled to wear it?

NEDLAM.

THE KÖNIGSMARKS.
(Vol. v., pp. 78. 115.)

A tragic destiny was that of most of the posterity of that John Christopher Königsmark, who commanded at the storm of the suburbs of Prague, the last deed of arms of the Thirty Years' War. John Christopher himself was born at Kotzlin in the Mark on Feb. 25, 1600, and from his brother descended the Königsmarks of the Mark. He fought first in the imperial service and in Italy, but afterwards joined the Swedes, and after the peace was Stadtholder of Bremen and Vredun, became Count and Royal Councillor (Reichsrath), and left behind him at his death in 1663 property worth 130,000 thalers yearly. He had three sons; the second, John Christopher, died in 1653 at Rottemburg, in Swabia, by a fall from his horse. The youngest, Count Otto Wilhelm, was born at Minden on June 3, 1639; studied under Esaias Pufendorf, and in 1654 was Rector Magnificus at Jena; served different powers as soldier and diplomatist; distinguished himself as general of the Venetians in the Morea; and died on September 16, 1688, of fever, when before Negropont. He was married to a Countess de la Gardie, of the well-known Swedish family. He probably was that Count Königsmark to whose protection John Leyser (Theophilus Alethaus) fled when he forfeited his offices of preacher and inspector at Pforta, which he had held since 1664, on account of, although himself chaste and virtuous, having defended polygamy; was pursued, taken, placed in prison, and died at Amsterdam in extreme poverty in 1684. The eldest son, Konrad, was first in the Swedish, then in the Dutch service, and fell a lieutenant-general at the siege of Bonn in 1673. He had married Marie Christine, daughter of Marshal Hermann Wrangel, and the Pfalzgravine Amalie Magdalene of Sulzbach, who bore him three sons and two daughters; one son died young. Which of the two others was the elder is doubtful. Certain it is that the one, Karl Johann, who is generally, though on no sufficient grounds, held to be the elder, was born in 1659, at Nieuburg on Fuhnen; studied till 1674 at Hamburg and Stade; then travelled in Holland, England, France, and Italy; fought so bravely on board the Maltese galleys, that on his departure in 1678 he, although a protestant, received the grand cross of the order. He then visited Rome, Florence, Genoa, Venice, Madrid, Paris, Holland, Hamburg, Stockholm, Windsor; set out in all haste when Tangiers was attacked, to take share in the battle; and, as the fleet was delayed by contrary winds, made his journey to Tangiers through France and Spain; from thence back again to Madrid and Paris; then again to Gibraltar, and three times to Africa; was with the English before Algiers; wandered round in Holland, England, and Germany; was with the French before Courtrai; and in Catalonia fought bravely under his uncle at Argos, and died in Greece on August 26, 1686.

The most mysterious episode of his life was brought on by his sueing for England's richest and highest heiress, Elizabeth, daughter of Josceline, second Earl of Northumberland.

The other brother, Count Philip Christopher, was involved in the well-known tale of the unfortunate wife of George I., the unhappy Sophia Dorothea of Zelle, afterwards Duchess of Ahlden, and met his death under circumstances of much mystery. According to the Duchess's assertion, he was the elder brother, as she states he was born in 1656.

The sisters were—Amalie Wilhelmina, and the well-known mistress of Augustus II., Maria Aurora, the mother of Marshal Saxe. Amalie married the Count Charles Gustavus of Löwenhaupt.

Extract from Von Bulau's Geheime Geschichten, vol. iii., article on "Count Löwenhaupt."

J. R. J. [184]

BOILING CRIMINALS TO DEATH.
(Vol. v., pp. 32. 112.)

MR. JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS'S observations upon the reply you favoured me by publishing upon this subject, require from me some few observations in further support of it. When I wrote the article in question, I had not had an opportunity of consulting the statute of 22 Hen. VIII. itself. In making the assertion that, prior to the case of Roose, "there was no peculiarity in the mode of punishment," I did so principally on the authority of Blackstone, who says—

"Of all species of deaths the most detestable is that of poison, because it can of all others be the least prevented either by manhood or forethought, and therefore by the statute of 22 Hen. VIII. c. 9. it was made treason, and a more grievous and lingering kind of death was inflicted on it than the common law allowed, namely, boiling to death."

Upon a perusal of the statute (as published by you at p. 33.), I am confirmed in my opinion that the statute was "retrospective in its enactments as against" Roose, and was more extensive in its operation than (as MR. NICHOLS appears to consider) merely depriving the culprit of the "advantage of his clargie." The Act, after reciting the facts of the case, enacted that the particular act of poisoning should be deemed high treason; and that the said "Richard" should be attainted of high treason: and because that offence, then "newly practised," required condign punishment, it was further enacted, that the said Richard Roose should be boiled to death without benefit of clergy.

If this particular punishment already existed for the crime stated in the Act to be "new," why the necessity for thus particularising the mode of punishment? The conclusion of the Act (differing much in the verbiage from that part relating to Roose) confirms me in my opinion, for it enacts that all future poisoners should not only be adjudged guilty of high treason, and not be admitted to the benefit of clergy, but also provides for the punishment in the mode in question.

With regard to the case instanced by MR. NICHOLS, in the 13th Hen., I merely observe that it appears to have escaped the attention of Blackstone, and others who have written upon the subject. Assuming that case to have happened, a reference to the statutes of Henry of that period might probably show that an Act was passed for the punishment of that particular offence; but not extending further, it became necessary to pass another, both specific and general, upon the occurrence of Roose's case.

In support of my view as to the discontinuance of the punishment, vide Blackstone, vol. iv. p. 96.

N.B. The date "1524" (third line from the bottom of second column, p. 112.) appears a misprint for "1542".

J. B. COLMAN.

Eye.

The punishment of boiling criminals to death was not inflicted solely for such a crime as poisoning. It was a common punishment for coining. See Annales Dominicanarum Colmariensium in Urstisius, Ger. Illust. Script., vol. ii. p. 12.; and Ducange, in verb. Caldariis decoquere. I believe instances of it will also be found in Döpler, Theatrum Pœnarum; and it will be seen by a reference to Ayala, Cronica del Rey Don Pedro, that this was the favourite mode of putting to death all persons who had offended him, employed by that monarch, who is best, and, as I think, most truly, known in history as "Peter the Cruel."

W. B. MACCABE.

As the punishment of boiling has been a matter of investigation lately in your columns, perhaps the following contribution on the same subject may not be uninteresting to some of your readers. It appears that in the year 1392, when Florentius Wewelinghofen, or Wewelkofen, was Bishop of Utrecht, a certain Jacobus von Jülich, by means of forged credentials from the Pope, contrived to pass himself off, for a time, as suffragan to the same see. Upon the discovery of the cheat, however, Florentius summoned a synod of six bishops to Utrecht, who condemned the unfortunate pretender to be sodden to death in boiling water! Zedler, in his Universal Lexicon, tom. ix. col. 1282., alludes to the fact. Wilh. Heda, in his Hist. Episc. Ultraject. pp. 259, 260., gives the story thus:

"Circa hæc tempora, scilicet anno 1392 ... quidam ex professione Divi Francisci, sese pro Sacerdote et Episcopo gerens, et in Suffraganeum Episcopi Florentii assumptus, cum aliquandiu sacra omnia peregisset, inventus falso charactere atque literis usus, destituitur, et ferventibus aquis immergendus adjudicatur; impositus vero aquis (quia clamore suo Episcopum ad pietatem commovit) statim extrahitur et capite truncatus obtinuit sepulturam."

Perhaps the Cardinal, should this meet his eye, or any one of your readers equally skilled in Roman ecclesiastical archæology, can inform the public whether this may not be the origin of the phrases, "getting oneself into hot water," and "being sent to pot."

J. B. MCC.

British Museum.

"ADMONITION TO THE PARLIAMENT."
(Vol. v., p. 4.)

This is not at all an uncommon book. There are at least three copies in the University Library, Cambridge; one at Trinity College; besides others in other college libraries. There is also one at Lambeth; two in the Bodleian, Oxford; and copies are from time to time occurring at booksellers' for sale. There is not, however, one in the British Museum; and the first edition is exceedingly scarce. MR. PAYNE COLLIER is, I [185] think, mistaken in the dates which he assigns to the Admonition and to Whitgift's Answer. He follows indeed Herbert's Ames, in which reference is made to Strype; but Strype would have furnished materials for a more accurate statement. Whitgift's Answer was first published towards the end of 1572; for the edition of that year does not contain "Certayne notes and properties of Anabaptistes," which Whitgift himself (Defense of the Aunswere, p. 33., and elsewhere) tells us he had introduced into the second edition. But these "notes" do appear in the edition dated 1573, which must therefore be only the second. Moreover, Thomas Norton wrote to Whitgift dissuading him from publishing his Answer. This letter was dated Oct. 20, 1572. In a subsequent letter to Archbishop Parker, dated Jan. 16, 1572 (1573), Norton speaks of his former epistle as having been written "before Mr. Whitgift's book came out." (See Strype; Whitgift, book I. chap. vi.; Parker, book IV. chap. xii.) The date of the Answer thus ascertained, we may the better conjecture the dates of the editions of the Admonition, which MR. COLLIER says he gathers "had been printed four times anterior to" 1572. Whitgift, it would seem, had written, if not published, his reply before more than a single edition of the Admonition was abroad; for he says (Answer, 1573, p. 189.), "After I had ended this confutation of the Admonition, there comes to my hand a new edition of the same, wherein some things be added," &c. He also says (Defense, p. 34.), "the Admonition was published after the Parliament, to the which it was dedicated, was ended ... it was not exhibited in Parliament, as it ought to have been," &c. Further, the Admonition itself, fol. A. viii., says, "immediately after the last Parliament holden at Westminster, begun in Anno 1570, and ended in Anno 1571," &c. This could hardly have been said earlier than 1572. For these reasons (I will not occupy space by alleging more) the Admonition could not, we may gather, have "been printed four times anterior to that year."

A. J. H.

"SIR EDWARD SEAWARD'S NARRATIVE."
(Vol. v., p. 10.)

The following is a copy of a letter addressed by Miss Porter to a relative of mine:—

"Esher, Jan. 30, 1832.

"Madam,—I hasten to express the pleasure with which I answer your favour on the subject of Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative, to the best indeed of my power, but, I regret to say, not as explicitly as I wish. However, with respect to the authenticity of the events, I have no reason to doubt them; the manner of the original MSS. coming into my hands having been precisely what my Preface to the work described.

"The same query that you have made has been put to me from various quarters; and I have communicated most of them to the owner of the MSS., but he invariably declines allowing me to give his name, or other proofs of the facts in the Narrative, saying, that 'since the public has done him the honour of putting his old heir-loom into mystery, even in the face of the editor's simply told Preface, he will not deprive himself of the amusement such unexpected doubts afford him.'

"Thus far his whimsical decision; nevertheless, as editor of the work, I cannot deny myself adding the sincere satisfaction I feel in the sympathy so universally expressed with the virtues of the truly amiable Seaward and his family; and the more so, as his lessons of piety and domestic concord in the most trying situations may well be considered his richest bequeathment.

"I have the honour to subscribe myself, Madam,

"Very much yours,

"JANE PORTER."

This corroborates the account given by W. W. E. J., and may be thought worthy of a place in "N. & Q."

W. H. LAMMIN.

Fulham.

If we may credit the inscription on the monument erected to the memory of the Porter family in Bristol Cathedral, the real author of Sir E. Seaward's Narrative was none other than Miss Porter's own brother, Dr. Wm. Ogilvie Porter, who within three months followed his sister to the grave, being the last survivor of that talented and distinguished family. Dr. Porter commenced his medical career as a surgeon in the navy, and was probably acquainted with the Caribbean Sea and its islands; for his first wife, who died in 1807, and was buried at St. Oswald, in the city of Durham, was a native of Jamaica. Whether he avowed himself the writer, when he entrusted the work to his sister for publication, seems doubtful. It is possible she may have been led to regard it as a genuine account of real transactions, whereas it is said to be an entirely fictitious and imaginary story, written solely for amusement.

May I take this opportunity of asking for information respecting the origin of the Porter family? Their father, who was a surgeon in the army, and died in early life, is said to have been of Irish extraction. Their mother was a Miss Blenkinsop, of the city of Durham. Any information respecting the families of Porter and Blenkinsop would be interesting. What is the name of the Russian nobleman or gentleman to whom the daughter of Sir R. K. Porter is married? If she is still alive, she is the sole representative of the Porters, it is believed.

E. H. A.

GENERAL WOLFE.
(Vol. v., pp. 34. 136.)

As a sequel to the inquiries suggested in your pages respecting General Wolfe, permit me to contribute the inscription on the obelisk erected [186] by Lord Dalhousie, in 1827, in a conspicuous part of Quebec, in honour of the General and of his brave opponent Montcalm.[9] I give it in the precise form in which it was obligingly communicated to me by the present Bishop of Quebec, in reply to my suggestions, a year or two ago, of another inscription, which I also send:

Suggested Inscription.

[9] [An account of laying the first stone of the obelisk to Wolfe and Montcalm, on Nov. 20, 1827, will be found in Quebec and its Environs, 8vo. 1837.—ED.] [187]

P.S.—I would add, in connexion with this subject, that an elegant and classical epitaph on Montcalm, printed in Popham's Illustrium Virorum Elogia Sepulchralia, ends as follows:

Query, Where is this epitaph inscribed; and is the fact recorded in it noticed in any cotemporary history?

F. K.

Bath.

Under the impression that the following Note, with reference to the gallant General James Wolfe, may tend to illustrate some other fact connected with the later period of the life of that generally lamented individual, I send it at a venture.

General Jones Wolfe was (I am not aware of the military rank he then filled) at—

"An encampment on Bradford Heath. about two miles from the town of Dorchester, co. Dorset, in the year 1757. The encampment consisted of the following regiments, under the command of Lieut.-Gen. Sir John Mordaunt and Major-Gen. Conway; viz. Bland's Dragoons; the Old Buffs, two battalions; Kingsley's, two battalions; one company of the Train of Artillery—in all ten troops, six battalions. Generals Mordaunt and Conway, and a great part of these forces, being sent on the expedition against Rochford, the remainder was reinforced and commanded by Lieut.-Gen. John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyll, and Major-Gen. Mostyn."

The above is extracted from Hutchins's History of Dorset, 1st edition, vol. i. p. 375.

That General Wolfe was in the above encampment, I had the information from a gentlemen who knew him; and many years ago I accidentally met with a book with the autograph of the General, "James Wolfe," written on the fly-leaf, in a bold and gentlemanly style. The volume being on a military subject, was not taken any care of, and lost: it was left by the General in the hands of Messrs. Gould and Thorne, booksellers in Dorchester, from whose successors I had it.

G. F.

Weymouth.

Replies to Minor Queries.

Commemoration of Benefactors (Vol. v., p. 126.).

—The office for commemoration of benefactors now used in the several colleges in the university of Cambridge, is prescribed by the statutes given to the university by Queen Elizabeth in the 12th year of her reign, cap. 4. sec. 38.

An earlier office (2 Eliz.) is given in Dr. Cardwell's Documentary Annals, vol. i. p. 282.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

King Robert Bruce's Watch (Vol. v., p. 105.).

—The watch known under this name is now, I believe, generally admitted to be a forgery. There is a letter in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. ii. p. 688., dated Forfar, August 20, 1785, and signed J. Jamieson, who therein states that the watch was offered for sale to him by a goldsmith hawker of Glasgow, who afterwards sold it for two guineas, and it was next sold for five. The letter does not trace this curiosity further; but I find in a little work by Adam Thompson, entitled Time and Timekeepers, that it subsequently found its way into the collection of George III.

W. W. E.

Hornchurch (Vol. v., p. 106.).

—Permit me to call the attention of your correspondents to some other peculiarities relating to Hornchurch. There once, I believe, were (are there now?) a pair of horns over the east window of the church; thence the name is probably derived. The great tithes were once the property of the monks of the celebrated monastery of St. Bernard in Savoy. Are not the horns connected with the arms of Savoy? New College received the great tithes directly from the monks, and have in their possession the license from the crown to alienate.

A. HOLT WHITE.

Buzz (Vol. v., p. 104.).

—Corruption of bouse or booze, to drink to excess. In Scotland they say "bouse a'," drink all.

J. R. J.

"Buzz," to empty the Bottle (Vol. v., p. 104.).

—The connexion between this and the drunken man, "with his head full of bees" (Vol. iv., p. 308.), must strike every thoughtful reader!

A. A. D.

Melody of the Dying Swan (Vol. v., p. 107.).

—A reference to Platon's Phædon, p. 84. sub fin., with Fischer's note, forms a tolerable answer to a Query on this subject. Fischer says—

"De cantu cygnorum, qui jam multis veterum fabulosus, v. Lucian. de Electro, c. 5.; Ælian. H.A. ii. 32.; xi. 1.; xiv. 13.; Pausan., i. 30.; Eutecnius Paraphr. Ixeut. Oppian., p. 78. 5.; Eustathius ad Il. βʹ., p. 254., aliosque qui a Jac. Thomasio laudati sunt in libelli singulari de cantu cygnorum."

[Where is this to be heard of?] Add Arist. H.A., viii. 11.; Ovid. Heroid. vii. 1.; Hesiod. Sc. 316.; Æsch. Ag. 1444.

A. A. D.

"From the Sublime to the Ridiculous is but a Step" (Vol. v., p. 100.).

—In MR. BREEN'S interesting article entitled "Idées Napoléoniennes" (p. 100.), is the following passage:

"It will be seen that the original saying has undergone a slight modification, Longinus making the transition a gradual one, κατ' ὀλίγον, while Blair, Payne, and Napoleon make it but 'a step.'"

Now there is nothing in the whole range of scholarship and philology that requires more tender handling than the Greek preposition, unless it be the prepositional adverb, which results from the combination of a preposition with an adjective. I would not be so bold as to assert that κατ' ὀλίγον does not mean "gradually, by little and little." I feel convinced that I have seen it so used before now; but I beg to submit that in the powerful passage quoted from Longinus it can only mean "presently, at once, with little" delay or interval. The purport of the passage seems to be this:—[The instances which I have cited] "exhibit rather a turbid diction, and a confused imagery, than a striking and forcible discourse. For, take them one by one, and hold them up to the light, and what first looked terrible shall presently take its true colour, and appear contemptible."

Longinus had quoted certain turgid and empty attempts at a very high rhetorical strain: he then in the passage before us condemns them for their confusion both of thought and phrase; and says, that they won't bear looking into for a minute (κατ' ὀλίγον).

If these remarks are correct, I fear they must damage the parallelism so industriously instituted by your correspondent; but if he will not be offended, I shall not regret it: for I confess to some feeling of jealousy in favour of modern forms of thought, and their claims to originality. The field of thought is finite, and great minds have tilled it before us; so that scarcely in its remotest corners shall you find a patch of virgin soil, or a bud till now unseen. But originality is not excluded for all that. He that culls a flower in the nineteenth century, and has an eye for its beauty, is as original an admirer as he who did the same on the day of creation. And he who with quick perceptions combines the thoughts which have arrested his attention, and with a lively and apt expression, fresh and free from conventional formalism, gives them out to another, that man may be called original. The opposite of originality is not repetition, but imitation. When, therefore, we would prove that a writer is not original, it is not enough to produce similar thoughts or phrases in older writers, unless our instances are so numerous as to afford an appearance of systematic copyism, or historical evidence of the fact of imitation be forthcoming from some external source.

J. E.

Oxford.

"Carmen perpetuum," &c. (Vol. v., p. 104.).

—The words in Ham's Bible are from the Metamorphoses of Ovid (I. 3.):

This book has been called the Heathen Bible. It should be studied with the Greek translation of Tzetzes (Boisaunade's edition), to show the identity of the gods and heroes of Greece and Rome under their different names in the two languages. Ovid was by profession a learned priest; and it is probable that the subjects of his verse were the subjects of scenic representations in the mysteries, to which probably moral and natural or theological instruction was added, much after the manner of the Greek choruses. That these mysteries taught something worth the attention of a philosopher and moralist is manifest from the encomiums of Cicero:

"Nam mihi cum multa eximia, divinaque videntur Athenæ tuæ peperisse, atque in vitâ hominum attulisse, tum nihil melius illis mysteriis, quibus ex agresti immanique vitâ exculti ad humanitatem et mitigati sumus: initiaque ut appellantur, ita reverâ principia vitæ cognovimus; neque solùm cum lætitiâ vivendi rationem accepimus, sed etiam cum spe meliore moriendi."—De Leg. lib. ii. c. 14. [188]

"For amongst other excellent and divine things which owed their origin to your Athens, and in which we participate, nothing is more admirable than those mysteries which have caused us to pass from a wild and uncivilised condition to one of amelioration and humanity: or, to speak more correctly, they first brought us to life, as indicated by the term initiation (beginning), which the mysteries have retained; since this new kind of life (regeneration) is not only attended with happiness, but is succeeded by the hope of a better destiny after death."

T. J. BUCKTON.

Lichfield.

Sterne at Paris (Vol. v., p. 105.).

—In Mémoires d'un Voyageur qui se repose, by Mons. Dutens, or Duchillon, as he also called himself, is an amusing account of a scene between Sterne and him, at Lord Tavistock's table at Paris, on the 4th June, 1762.

M. S.

The Paper of the present Day (Vol. iii., p. 181.).

—A. GRAYAN'S note on the "First Paper Mill" reminds me of a too long neglected remark of your correspondent LAUDATOR TEMPORIS ACTI on the inferiority of the paper made in the present days as compared with that of olden times. As a matron, whose proper business it is to be curious in such matters, I venture to suggest that the universal use of calicos and printed cottons in the place of linen articles of dress, is the true cause of the deterioration of the paper of our books. The careful inspection of the rags of present days on their arrival at a paper-mill, will, I think, confirm my statement, if any gentleman who still clings pertinaciously to the linen shirts of "better times" is disposed to doubt the fact.

MARGARET GATTY.

Cimmerii, Cimbri (Vol. iv., p. 444.).

—If the belief which derives the Cimbrians from Gomer, son of Japhet, be on the increase, I fear the movements of our restless race are not altogether progressive.

But there is good reason to think, that the Cimbri were of the Brito-Gallic race and tongue. Morimarusa (Pliny, iv. 27.) does not belong to Indogermanic, or any such high categories as will prove nearly what you please. It is a piece of exact and determinate Brito-Gallic.

Pompeius Festus and Plutarch agree in stating, that the meaning of the name was robbers;—not, of course, as applied to individual offenders, or to any offenders, but as the hereditary boast of predatory tribes. "Thou shalt want ere I want" is the motto of the Lords Cranstoun, and was the motto of all Cimbrians.

Cimmerii has certainly every appearance of being the same name as Cimbri. In like manner, Cymmry becomes Cumbria and (unaccountably) Cambria; Ambrosius becomes Emmrys, and Humber Hymmyr. What remains of the old word Cimbr, or Cimmr, as meaning Latro, is the verb cymmeryd (and its cognate words), to take, or, more etymologically, to apportion: Dividers of booty. The change of the sharp iota into that short vowel of which we possess not the long, but of which the long is the French eu, forms the difficulty; but the savages of Asia, and those of Caius Marius, may be conceived to have used vowels of shriller pronunciation than the Gauls and Britons.

The Brigantes of Yorkshire, &c., bore a synonymous appellation, still used in French and Armorican, and not wholly extinct in Welsh. Of a race named Cimbri, or Cumbri, in this island, nothing whatever is known from ancient geography or history. And probably no such name co-existed with that of the Brigantes. For, if the two synonymes were used together, neither would express a distinctive peculiarity. The fable of the Brut probably has a core of general truth, when it refers that name to the days of the Cambro-Scoto-Saxon tripartition, disguised as Cambro-Albano-Loegrian.

A. N.

Rents of Assize (Vol. v., p. 127.).

—Rents of Assize, Redditus assisæ de assisa vel redditus assisus. The certain and determined rents of ancient tenants paid in a set quantity of money or provisions; so called, because it was assised or made certain, and so distinguished from redditus mobilis, variable rent, that did rise and fall, like the corn rent now reserved to colleges. (Cowel's Interpreter.) Ob. q. mean respectively obolus and quadrans.

The great pipe is a roll in the Exchequer wherein all accounts and debts due to the king delivered and drawn out of the remembrancer's offices, are entered and charged. I presume the Bishop of Winchester's great pipe was a roll of all accounts and debts due to him in right of his bishopric.

J. G.

Exeter.

Lord Coke (2nd Institute, 19.) gives this definition:

"Redditus assisus, or redditus assisæ: vulgarly, rents of assise, are the certain rents of the freeholders and ancient copiholders, because they be assised, and certain, and doth distinguish the same from redditus mobiles, farm rents for life, years, or at will, which are variable and incertain."

Ob. q. means three farthings, "ob." being an abbreviation of obolus, a halfpenny, and "q." of quadrans, a farthing.

The great pipe in the document referred to apparently means the pipe roll of the Bishops of Winchester, of which some account may be seen in the report of the case of Doe dem. Kinglake v. Beviss, in 7 Common Bench Reports, 456.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

Monastic Establishments in Scotland (Vol. v., p. 104.).

—In Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland, [189] etched by Adam de Cardonnel, is a list of the different monastic establishments in Scotland. If your correspondent has not seen this volume, which I apprehend to be rather scarce (it was printed for the author in 1788), I shall be happy to supply him with a transcript of the list that Mr. De Cardonnel has given in his introduction.

M. S.

History of Brittany (Vol. v., p. 59.).

—MR. KERSLEY will find much information of the kind he wishes in the genealogies of the families of Bretagne by D'Hosier, "Chevalier, Conseiller du roy en ses conseils, Juge d'Armes de la Noblesse de France," circiter 1765.

My copy of the Genealogies of Normandy, by d'Hosier, was bought at Quaritch's, who also, I remember, a few months ago advertised other sets of the same herald, and I think Brittany amongst them.

I. J. H. H.

St. Asaph.

Marches of Wales, and Lords Marchers (Vol. v., pp. 30. 135.).

—In connexion with this Query, it may be interesting to G. to know that Mr. Thos. Davies Lloyd, of Bronwydd, Caermarthenshire, is the only "Lord Marcher now extant in the kingdom" (extract from a letter of Mr. Lloyd to me). Mr. Lloyd holds the barony of Kemes, in the county of Pembroke, which was erected into a Lordship Marcher by Martin de Tours, one of the companions of William I., who exercised the Jura Regalia, and other peculiar privileges.

I. J. H. H.

St. Asaph.

The Broad Arrow (Vol. iv., pp. 315. 371. 412.; Vol. v., p. 115.).

—I can see nothing to connect this symbol with the worship of Mithras, but I have always fancied it of much earlier date than that commonly assigned to it. A coin of Carausius with a Greek legend would be an object of great interest to our English numismatists, but nothing of the kind has ever been seen! My reason for thinking that the symbol of the "broad arrow" is one of considerable antiquity is, that the name by which sailors and "longshore" people designate it, namely, the "Broad Ar," is clearly not a vulgarism, but an archaism. In the north of England "ar" or "arr" is still used for a mark. It occurs on very early Danish coins, and I entertained a hope that some northern antiquary would have told me how it originated; but my enquiry has ended in disappointment. Query, When was the Pheon, which it is supposed to be, first used as an heraldic device? I have before me a coin of Stralsund, minted in the fourteenth century, with the Pheon for the principal type. By German writers this object is called a fishspear, but I cannot help thinking that its origin may be connected with the broad arrow.

J. Y. AKERMAN.

Miniature of Cromwell (Vol. iv., p. 368.; Vol. v., pp. 17. 92.).

—In addition to those already mentioned, I have seen in the possession of a gentleman connected with a Presbyterian trust, a miniature of Oliver Cromwell by Cooper. The building connected with the trust, is one of those built after the passing of the Five Mile Act, and is near Yarmouth; with which place, as is well known, Cromwell was much connected.

X. Y. Z.

The Sinaïtic Inscriptions (Vol. iv., p. 382.)

have been deciphered by Dr. E. F. Beer. Vide his Studia Asiatica, Leipsic, 1840.

S. W.

Why cold Pudding settles One's Love (Vol. v., p. 50.).

—As no one has replied to the Query of "AN F. S. A. WHO LOVES PUDDING," may I be permitted to offer the following conjectural solution? In some parts of the principality it is customary on the morning of a wedding-day for the bridegroom, with a party of his friends, to proceed to the lady's residence; where he and his companions are regaled with ale, bread and butter, and cold custard pudding! I hope I have hit the mark! But, perhaps, it does not become me to speculate upon these dainty matters.

AN OLD BACHELOR.

Hoxton.

Covines (Vol. iv., p. 208.).

—A. N.'s inquiry for a reference not having been answered, I beg to name Sir Walter Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 206.; or, if he desires to "sup full of horrors," Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. iv. Appendix, p. 602., where the confessions of the witches of Aulderne are given at length. It appears by these confessions that a covine consists of thirteen witches ("the Deil's dozen?"), of whom two are officials, the Maiden of the Covine, who sits next the Deil, and with whom he leads off the dance (called Gillatrypes), and the officer, who, like the crier in a court of justice, calls the witches at the door, when the Deil calls the names from his book.

Covine is conventus. Covent Garden. See Dr. Jamieson on the word Covine-tree.

W. G.

"Arborei fœtus alibi," &c. (Vol. v., p. 58.).

—Had the "head master" been as well versed in the subject as he undoubtedly was in the words of the Georgics, he would have explained to the "sixth form" that, in the lines

the intention of the poet was to contrast an agricultural with a pastoral district. The alibi which he establishes in the case of "arborei fœtus" he applies equally to "injussa gramina;" and his obvious meaning is this:—One district is naturally fitted for the cultivation of corn; another for that of vines; whilst a third is more adapted for [190] woodland, or rather, perhaps, orchards, meadows, and pastures: the sowing down or formation of which, if indeed the hand of man has had anything to do with them at all—being a thing of the past, and, perhaps, not within the range of the oldest inhabitant's memory, their produce may with propriety be termed "injussa," or spontaneous.

W. A. C.

Ormsary.

Poniatowski Gems (Vol. v., p. 140.).

—A.O.O.D. is informed that the first sale of these gems took place in 1839, by Christie, and they were bought by a Mr. Tyrrell for 12,000l.

M——N.

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.

The Men of the Time in 1852, or Sketches of Living Notables, is intended, as we are told in the Preface, "to bring together in one muster-roll the people who take the lead in doing the Work of the World, in literature, in politics, in art, and in science,—who are influential in their generation, either in thought or in action." The idea is a good one, and the book will eventually supply a want which all have felt. We say "eventually," because both Editor and Publisher must be aware that no first attempt of a work of this nature can at all approach perfection. We do not complain that, within the small compass of the present volume, we find many names we should scarcely have looked for in such a selection; but we would, for the purpose of improving the next edition, point out the omission of many very important ones. In the field of learning, antiquarian and historical, we miss all mention of Ellis, Hallam, Mahon, Maitland, Madden, Palgrave, Kemble, Thorpe and Wright. In other classes again we meet with similar omissions. We find Robert Owen, but not Professor Owen; Southwood Smith, but not Sir Harry Smith; Faraday we have, but not Wheatstone; the Bishops of Exeter, Oxford, and St. David's, but not the Bishops of London or Ely. We have Pusey, but neither Hook, Bennett, Close, nor Newman. We have George Dawson the lecturer, but not Cowden Clarke the lecturer. Such are some of the instances of omission which have occurred to us, and which will no doubt be supplied in a new edition. May we add our hope that in such new edition as ample justice will be rendered to all "men of learning" as is in the present one rendered to all "men of the press."

When we find that the new issue of Bohn's Illustrated Library consists of the first volume of a revised and enlarged edition of The Battles of the British Navy, by Joseph Allen, Esq., R.N., we are almost disposed to imagine that this indefatigable publisher had seen with prophetic eye that in the opening of 1852 Mr. Cobden's theory of universal peace would lose favour, and that John Bull would resume his old love for the "blue jackets." Be that as it may, such a work as the present, popularly written, handsomely illustrated, and published at a moderate price, which would at all times be a boon, is not likely to be less welcome at a moment when there is a general feeling abroad, that England's best securities for that peace which all would preserve, "like her best bulwarks," are "her wooden walls."

Sir Joshua Reynolds was a painter among painters, and a man of letters among men of letters; and as long as the literature of this country endures, his name will be held in remembrance and in honour. In giving, therefore, to the world a new edition of The Literary Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the Royal Academy; to which is prefixed a Memoir of the Author, with Remarks on his Professional Character illustrative of his Principles and Practice, by Henry Williams Beechey, Mr. Bohn has conferred a boon, not only upon the professional student, but upon all who would acquire a knowledge of the presiding principle which regulates every part of art, and who can appreciate the eloquent and admirable manner in which the great president conveyed that knowledge.

When a glimpse of sunshine warns us of the approach of spring, and that our young friends are bethinking them of the country and its varied pleasures, when they will again—

we are reminded of a long-delayed wish to call their attention to Gosse's Popular British Ornithology, containing a Familiar and Technical Description of the Birds of the British Isles, as a means of turning their pleasant rambles to a source of profitable instruction. With this scientific, though concise and popularly written volume, profusely illustrated as it is with coloured figures of the most remarkable British birds, as their guide—and a little patient observation—an amount of knowledge of birds and their habits will soon be acquired by them, which will prove a source of never-ending enjoyment, and give new zest to every fresh visit to the woods and fields.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES
WANTED TO PURCHASE.

GREGORY'S (DR.) SECOND MEMORIAL TO THE MANAGERS OF THE ROYAL INFIRMARY, EDINBURGH.

HERON'S (SIR ROBERT) NOTES. First Edition. Privately printed.

COBBETT'S STATE TRIALS. 8vo. Vol. VIII. 1810.

ARNOTT'S PHYSICS. 2 Vols.

ISR. CLAUDERI DISPUTATIO DE SALE SUB PRÆSIDIO SAGITTARII. Jenæ, 1650.

CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. Vol. I. Third Edition.

MACKINNON'S HISTORY OF CIVILISATION. Vol. II. 1846.

LITE'S DODOENS' HERBAL. First Edition. (An imperfect copy to complete another.)

TURNER'S A BOOKE OF THE NATURES OF THE BATHES IN ENGLAND. 1568. (An imperfect copy to complete another.)

A MOST EXCELLENT AND PERFECTE CORNISH APOTHECARY. 1561. (An imperfect copy to complete another.)

TURNER'S A NEW HERBALL. (An imperfect copy to complete another.)

FIELDING'S WORKS. 14 Vols. 1808. Vol. XI. [Being 2nd of Amelia].

SHADWELL. Vols. II. and IV. 1720.

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON. Vol. IV. 1819.

BARONETAGE. Vol. I. 1720. Ditto. Vols. I. and II. 1727.

CHAMBERLAYNE'S PHARONNIDA. (Reprint.) Vols. I. and II. 1820.

HOLCROFT'S LAVATER. Vol. I. 1789.

DRECHSLERUS DE LARVIS. Lipsiæ, 1674.

ELSLEY ON THE GOSPEL AND ACTS. London, 1833. Vol. I.

*** Letters, stating particulars and lowest price, carriage free, to be sent to MR. BELL, Publisher of "Notes and Queries," 186. Fleet Street. [191]

Notices to Correspondents.

W. M. N. is thanked for the kindly spirit of his communication. The articles to which he refers shall be attended to.

AMERICA. Our friends who desire to know how "N. & Q." may be forwarded to America are informed that all that is required is to affix a penny stamp to a copy of the stamped edition.

SALOPIAN. There is as little doubt that Friday is considered unlucky because it is the day of the Crucifixion, as that the belief of its being unlucky for thirteen to set down to a meal together owes its origin to the remembrance of the Last Supper.

G.R.E.E.N. is no doubt a wag. But as we do not share his viridity, we have committed his communication to the fire, and can assure him for his consolation that, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek's leg, it looked "indifferent well in a flame-coloured stock."

F. M. W. (Camden Town), who inquires respecting the meaning and origin of "era," is referred to our 4th Vol. pp. 383. 454., and 5th Vol. p. 106.

K. (of Carlisle). This correspondent has not said what the communication was to which he refers. We are therefore unable to reply to his inquiry.

TILLOTSON'S SERMONS, by Parker, Vol. I., may be had on application to the Publisher.

REPLIES RECEIVED.—Ring Finger—Sanctus Bell—Bastides—Gospel Oaks—Hyrne—Cibber's Lives of the Poets—Poniatowski's Gems—Stoke—Pendulum Demonstration—Theoloneum—Rent of Assize—Kissing under the Mistletoe—Cambridge Commemoration Service—Asters with Trains of Fire—Celebrated Trees—Hieroglyphics of Vagrants—Pasquinades—Traditions from remote Periods—Wiggan or Utigan—Derivation of "Era"—Smothering Hydrophobic Patients—Grimsdyke—Queen of the Isle of Man.

Printed by THOMAS CLARK SHAW, of No. 8. New Street Square, at No. 5. New Street Square, in the Parish of St. Bride, in the City of London; and published by GEORGE BELL, of No. 186. Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Dunstan in the West, in the City of London, Publisher, at No. 186. Fleet Street aforesaid.—Saturday, February 21, 1852.